Composer, novelist and pro- Palestinian political activist Raymond Deane (above) turned 60 last month (he shares a birthday with Mozart), and the musical establishment is noting the occasion with three events.

The biggest is on tomorrow afternoon, when St Ann’s Church is the venue for presentations; performances of works from the 1970s, as well as a belated premiere of Deane’s First String Quartet of 1981; and a recorded excerpt from his opera The Alma Fetish, which will receive its concert premiere at the National Concert Hall on September 17th.

Deane is also the focus of Tuesday’s RTÉ NSO Horizons lunchtime concert, when Gavin Maloney will conduct the composer’s self-chosen programme – Carl Ruggles’s Portals preceding his own Epitomes and Ripieno. There’s also a public interview with Evonne Ferguson before the concert, at 12.30pm.

Deane also features in one of the programmes of Waterford New Music Week, where the RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet will play his Embers of 1973, the piece of which he is most proud (and which also features in Saturday’s offerings). In Waterford it will be heard in a programme which treats Mozart’s Quartet in A, K464 (1785), and Britten’s Second Quartet (1945) as new music, and also includes Deirdre McKay’s genuinely new Mr Shah stares to the heavens, commissioned by Sligo’s Con Brio Music Series, and premiered just last month.